Iconic Lake Pontchartrain Causeway sign and canopy on south shore may be demolished

Kathy Anderson / The Times-PicayuneThe Causeway's toll tag office on the south shore, which also houses their police department and dates from the opening of the first span in 1956, will be destroyed to make way for the Corps' levee improvements.

Since the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opened in 1956, northbound drivers have entered the 24-mile bridge by passing under a canopy.

Marking the start of a trip across the lake for generations of motorists, the canopy with the bridge's name and the squat brick building nearby that houses the toll-tag office and the Causeway Police Department are as old as the bridge itself.

But the 50-year-old landmarks will soon be demolished to make way for a floodwall at the entrance to the bridge as part of the Army Corps of Engineers' 100-year flood-protection plan.

Causeway employees are scrambling to find a place for their offices and computer servers. Drivers will lose the convenience of purchasing toll tags at the foot of the bridge. And the structures, though considered not much to look at, have some historic value as fixtures of the streetscape where Metairie meets the lake.

Causeway General Manager Robert Lambert seems resigned to letting the building go. But he is determined to save the canopy, whose 1950s-era lettering has a certain retro appeal.

The Times-Picayune ArchiveToll booth at the Greater New Orleans Expressway, now known at the Causeway, when it opened in 1956.

"It's not always how pretty a building looks. I'll admit it's not pretty," Lambert said. "I'm going to fight to save that canopy."

Corps spokesman Rene Poche acknowledged that the structures are "a piece of history" but said the new floodwall will provide better protection for south shore residents.

If bridge officials want to preserve the canopy, the corps may work with them to move it to a new location nearby, Poche said.

Construction, which will entail building a 10-foot floodwall and elevating Causeway Boulevard to go over the wall, is scheduled to begin in early 2010, with two lanes of traffic remaining open in both directions.

The design is only about halfway complete, so the configuration of the bridge entrance is yet to be determined. But the office building and canopy will definitely have to go, Poche said. Even if they could be saved, they would not be protected by the new floodwall.

Most of the people and equipment now in the office building will move down the block to the fourth floor of the Volunteers of America building, where the Causeway Commission's far-from-spacious main offices are located.

A wall has already been built next to Lambert's office to create a space for the equipment that operates the bridge's cameras. There is no plan yet for where the Police Department's offices will go.

Customers wishing to purchase toll tags on the Metairie side of the bridge will have to deal with a crowded parking lot, taking an elevator to what is now the conference room where Causeway Commission meetings are held.

The conference room will also be the new repository for police records. Commission meetings may move to a rented space across the street.

Less visible to the public -- but a bigger headache to move -- are the Causeway's computer systems, including those that record toll collection and those that control the call boxes, warning lights and signs on the bridge.

Lambert hopes that the tangle of wires and servers can be relocated to the north shore, where the tolls are collected. Better yet, he would like to see a new system installed there, rather than shutting down the old one and trucking it across the lake.

Eventually, the agency may rent more space or construct a new building near its present location, Lambert said.

The details of the move are still to be worked out, but Causeway officials are certain they must be out of the old building by the end of 2009.

With buying a toll tag on the south shore about to become less convenient, doing so on the north shore has become easier. The drive-through toll tag office in Mandeville has extended its hours from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tags may also be purchased online at www.thecauseway.com.